This is a little variable based on character SPD and whether they're on a horse or not, but your theory is sound.

Let's be conservative and say it takes a character 2 minutes to cross a full world cell (e.g. the full length of Daggerfall city plus a small band of surrounding terrain). The game world is 1000 cells across, so it would take approx. 2000 minutes, or roughly 33 real-time hours at that speed, to cross the entire world from west to to east.

I think it's possible to play through without fast travel, but I would personally find it a bit tedious with all the back and forth involved. You might also run afoul of time limits in quests, as this is optimised for fast travel and may not be generous enough for human guided travel.

It would be an interesting experiment though! Definitely iron man stuff.

So in terms of an actual playthrough of any portion of the game, I was definitely planning to restrict my activities to a very densely populated region, where the locations are a few pixels away at most.

Could roleplay that aspect; local adventurer etc.

Would have to sacrifice a lot as the game is built with fast travel in mind; main quest line, lots of quests (not sure how many), etc.

An alternative would be to fast travel off screen only, perhaps begin and end each episode with fast travel. "An exhausting but uneventful journey behind him, the lone monk arrives at the far off capital city of Daggerfall, fresh off the parish, road-weary but wide-eyed," etc.

I actually just installed it on a whim. I had assumed I'd dislike the combat as I dislike precision mouse control and action. Imagine my surprise when I was presented with an option to reduce the reaction time component. So far the combat is as slow as Morrowind, well within tolerance.

Ill go ahead and test travel times myself and see if I can manage a pleasing mix of graphical enhancements (discovered the project only through procedural landscape research/enthusiasm).

Id like to roam across vast landscapes; dungeons and cities are just bonuses